What You Need To Know About “50 Shades Of Grey” Director Sam Taylor-Johnson

Nearly two years to the day since E.L. James’ first Fifty Shades of Grey novel hit — and nearly melted — bookshelves, Universal and Focus Features have announced that Sam Taylor-Johnson will direct its highly anticipated big screen adaptation.

Last summer, Angelina Jolie was rumored to be in talks to get behind the camera to tell the graphic story of college grad Anastasia Steele and kinky businessman Christian Grey, while more recently, names like Joe Wright (Anna Karenina) and Gus Van Sant were bandied about for the job. Instead, producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti chose Taylor-Johnson, a 46-year old British filmmaker.

1. She’s directed one movie before: 2009’s Nowhere Boy, about a young John Lennon.

“We were both aware that something was happening while we were working but too terrified to let it happen while we were at work. A woman going out with a younger man feels like the last taboo. We’re happy and we’re in love, and our life is working out well. We’re not hurting anyone. What’s the issue? Other than curiosity, I suppose. Or jealousy. Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you’re this, I dunno, scarlet woman they’re all gossiping about.”

3. So will Aaron play Christian Grey? We asked Brunetti; he referred us to this tweet:

And already the press is jumping to conclusions as to who Christian Grey is going to be. Fools.

— DanaBrunetti (@Dana Brunetti)

Dana Brunetti

@DanaBrunetti

And already the press is jumping to conclusions as to who Christian Grey is going to be. Fools.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s representative confirmed that he would not be involved in the film.

5. Before she went into film, Taylor-Johnson was a photographer.

Her work has been featured in museums around the world (mostly under the name Sam Taylor-Wood), from the Guggenheim to Centre National de la Photographie in Paris and White Cube in London to the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

9. She was raised for a time in a commune.

“Her mother remarried, to another yoga teacher, and moved to the depths of Sussex - a dank, dark ‘Hammer House of Horror in the woods in the middle of nowhere’. They were part of a yoga commune and wore orange robes, took Sanskrit names and went on retreats to see swamis - ‘I used to hate it. Which is quite strange, because now of course I think I’d quite like those retreats, the silence and the meditation and the yoga and the health food, but as a child it was torture.’”